Even as robberies decline across Denver, thieves are continuing to snatch iPhones at a growing rate.

Robberies overall are down by nearly 16 percent so far this year, from 1,120 between January and November of 2012 to 941 during the same time period this year. But an iPhone was stolen in 89 of this year’s cases, a 22 percent jump from last year, when the coveted Apple smartphones were taken in 73 robberies, Denver Police Department statistics show.

During the same span in 2011, iPhones were stolen in just 37 robberies. Thefts of iPhones have become so widespread around the country that police have dubbed the crime “Apple picking.”

Denver police officials say the spike is a sign of the phone’s increasing popularity and prevalence on the street. In most cases, robbers are snatching the devices from the hands of distracted or unsuspecting pedestrians. Seventy-six of this year’s iPhone heists were street robberies. And police sought juvenile suspects in 66 of the cases.

“In general, the motivation is money, and an i-Phone is probably a secondary fruit from the tree,” said Denver police Sgt. Steve Warneke.

But as more and more i-Phones go missing, more technologies are aiming to help owners and police recover them. The trick is knowing how to use them.

In October, a man helped Denver police capture three teenage suspects who snatched his iPhone off the street during a robbery in Montbello. The victim determined the phone’s location using the “Find My i-Phone” application and a laptop computer, which led officers within minutes to the suspects and their getaway van, which was reported stolen.

And less than a month earlier, when a woman was robbed of her phone in Cheesman Park, Denver officers used a GPS tracker to chase three juvenile suspects to Lakewood and back into Denver’s west side.

“These new features are great, but people need to make sure they know how to use them,” said Ben Reubenstein, CEO at Double Encore, a mobile app developer in Denver. “I have friends who have had situations where it’s after the device is taken that they realize they didn’t have the device set up right.”

Apple’s latest iPhone operating system includes a security feature called “Activation Lock,” which works with the “Find my iPhone” app and ensures that thieves can’t “wipe” an i-Phone of its data to sell or pawn it without the owner’s ID and password.

“It basically becomes a brick,” Reubenstein said.

But for that feature to work, an iPhone owner needs the latest operating system and the right combination of settings.

Ron Manske found that out the hard way.

When a stranger picked up his wife’s iPhone at the Children’s Museum of Denver in October, he used the “Find my iPhone” app to trace it to a home in southwest Denver, where he met with a Denver officer. But the “sweet little old lady” who lived there claimed not to have it, and Manske lost track of the phone, which had an older operating system, soon after.

“We weren’t able to recover it,” Manske said. “It was a lost cause. I had to buy her a used cellphone off of Craigslist to replace it.”

Robberies and thefts of other cellphone varieties are also common, though Denver police did not have such statistics immediately available. Samsung floated the idea of a “kill switch” that would let an owner disable the device when stolen, but the nation’s largest wireless carriers have been reluctant to sign on to that plan.

“If people steal phones, and you remote-lock them, then that person can’t walk into a store and become a new subscriber,” Reubenstein said. Functions like the “kill switch” and “Activation Lock” can be theft deterrents, he said, urging users to set passwords on their phones as well.

But Warneke said technology is “not a cure-all.” He has investigated cases where tracking devices failed.

He said sometimes simple vigilance — walking in groups at night, sticking to well-lit areas — can offer the needed protection.

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